why is it so hard(in) to craft a pseudonym for harry styles?
My old foe has been dormant since he stole Beyoncé’s Album of the Year Grammy last year, but that doesn’t mean I’ve entirely given up on examining his appeal. I actually find him a lot more tolerable now that he isn’t everywhere! And that’s unacceptably incongruous with my personal brand, so now I have to sustain my haterade habit through somewhat ethically dubious means. I have to get bootleg (and inevitably, much worse!) Harold content from questionable sources.
One such source is Michael Showalter’s The Idea of You, adapted from Robinne Lee’s 2017 novel of the same name, which is not fanfiction about Harry Styles. Not just about Harry Styles, anyway — Lee told Vogue in 2020 that the romantic lead was also inspired by Prince Harry, Eddie Redmayne, and her own husband. But none of those guys was ever in an astronomically popular five-piece boy band. As far as we know.
A common misconception seems to be that The Idea of You, like Anna Todd’s After series or E. L. James’s Fifty Shades series, originated unwholesomely on Wattpad or Fanfiction.net, with Lee’s self-insert original character falling in love with Actual Harry Styles from Actual One Direction. But it’s not. If The Idea of You had been published on Wattpad, someone would’ve archived it. The PDF would’ve made the rounds on Twitter. You would’ve seen it. And clowned on it.
I have not read The Idea of You, which means I am definitely qualified to write this article, but the movie is structured shockingly like a work of fanfiction. I wasn’t even in the One Direction fandom, and I still spent all 116 minutes in a cold sweat, going, “Oh god, I’ve read this. I read this in 2012, except it was about [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] from [REDACTED].” I thought the vastly different medium of film would’ve neutralized the fanficness somewhat, but it’s blinding. At this point I’m afraid to read the book.
All that to say, if I couldn’t get the whole Harry Styles thing, I was downright baffled by the whole Hayes Campbell thing, and a not-insignificant reason for this is because his name is fucking Hayes Campbell. You know, like a normal person. We are to believe this man’s parents gazed upon their newborn son and went, “Hm. Looks like a Hayes.” And then they wrote that on his birth certificate. We are to believe that Robinne Lee was like, “You know what exudes sex appeal? The Motion Picture Production Code.” And then she put an E in it to deter pedants like me.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have After’s Hardin Scott. HARDIN SCOTT. HARDIN. SCOTT. I feel grosser every time I type it. Hardin Scott. I need to take four showers. Porn star vibes aside, has any human being in recorded history ever been called Hardin? (Five showers.) The only thing less realistic than looking at a baby and seeing a Hayes is looking at a baby and seeing a Hardin. (Six.)
Do these writers know they aren’t married to the letter H? They aren’t even obligated to give these guys Harry Stylesesque names at all! I would be so coy about that shit. “This is my original character, Benjamin Pendergast,” I’d say. “He’s in sales.” And then no one would have any reason to suspect that he was Harry Styles in a trench coat and sunglasses. “This is Conroy Dietrich,” I’d tell my editor. “He hails from Waukegan, Illinois, and he is bad at singing.”
Or maybe readers are supposed to see the names and extrapolate that these guys are based on Harry Styles? That’s an awful lot to expect of them. Is the average Barnes and Noble shopper, who isn’t necessarily that Online, really going to read the name Hardin Scott (seven) on a book jacket and instantly know it’s a Harry Styles pastiche? Or even a human man at all?
In the interest of constructive criticism, I give you two happy mediums: Henry Stein, if your Harold is a boy-next-door type; and Hunter Strong, if he’s a bad boy with a heart of gold. There. It took me approximately ten seconds on a baby name website. You can even use both if you want a love triangle. Wait, oh my god, I have such a good idea for a totally original novel—